10/15/2013
I finally received my
birthday package from my parents! They, along with my aunts, put
together a giant box full of dried fruit, Oreos, cake mix and
frosting, magazines, beauty products, pajamas, scarves, 2 new pairs
of boots and movies. It was amazing! The box looked like it literally
went through the Typhoon that happened last week in China. Which
makes sense since it was stuck in China forever. It was torn, opened
and resealed, wet and squashed. Luckily, everything inside was fine!
The box even had a Chinese sticker on it that said return to USA, but
someone crossed it out and sent it onward, thank god! When I went to
the Post Office the lady told me that my package was very large and
that I should get a taxi to get it home. But I have yet to get a cab
here in my city and really didn't want to test it out without my
handy dictionary, so I decided I would brave the walk and carry it
home ( my site mates were all still at work). My arms ached by the
time I got home, but I made it and only had to stop twice to take a
break!
An electrician came
today to take a look at my hot water heater in my shower. The box was
broken, so I always have to heat my water on the stove, but it looks
like the landlord is going to replace it, since I pay more in rent
because the apartment is supposed to have hot water in the shower. I
will be so happy if this really happens. They took the old one out
and said they would be back with a new one (I think that's what the
man said, I really could not understand him, but hand gestures and
the fact that he had the old box in his hand led me to that
conclusion). Fingers crossed!
10/16/2013
Yesterday, I was part
of my first real training. I planned the training and activities that
would go along with it, but unfortunately due to time constraints we
had to reschedule my part for another day, which is fine, because
there is so much more that I wanted to do and now I'll have more time
to do so. It was nice to watch the other presenters, they consisted
of 3 Health Department staff members and 2 staff members from the
Tuberculosis Center. My counterpart gave a presentation on the
dangers of smoking, he is such a great presenter! He engaged the
college students and had them really into a discussion and had them
laughing the whole time. He is so ambitious and self motivated, its
amazing. I am so lucky to be paired with him. I always have a great
time when he is around and he is so knowledgeable on everything,
literally any question I have he can answer. The other two health
department staff presented on nutrition, STD/STI and family planning.
The two woman from the TB Center presented TB, obviously, which is
still a large problem in Mongolia. My presentation was supposed to be
on the dangers of binge drinking in college and I had made “drunk
goggles” and prepared an obstacle course for them to do with the
goggles on. The goggles were super easy to make and when I go into UB
for Thanksgiving I am going to buy real safety goggles to use just
for this demonstration, for now I am using my sunglasses. All you
have to do to make them is to have a pair of glasses or goggles and
then you put Vaseline on the lenses. The Vaseline distorts everything
when you look out the lenses and to add to the drunk feeling, I was
going to make them spin 6 times before they could start the obstacle
course and intoxication drills. I am excited to do it tomorrow
because I tried it out this afternoon and they really worked. I am
going to have them wear the goggle and spin and then another student
will toss a ball at them to try to catch and then they have to
navigate through like a maze and at the end write down their name and
phone number on a small piece of paper. Tomorrow, I will be doing my
presentation first to make sure I get to go, because my counterpart
thinks the kids will like mine the best, which I agree. Health
educators here in Mongolia, do not use any interactive means to teach
their information, it is just straight lecture. Yesterday, many of
the students were talking, sleeping and playing on their phones
through out the training. I wanted to snap my fingers at them but I
thought it would be rude. They were very nice and respectful of me
though. When I first got there, they had one of the better English
speakers welcome me to the university and told me about the schools
history and current population of students. Its funny, when I first
walked up to the building, I thought it was an elementary school, the
universities here are so tiny. It is smaller than the elementary
school that I went to back home.
10/17/2013
Today, we were
supposed to do another training at another university but it got
rescheduled due to teacher inspections. I have no idea what that
means, neither did my counterpart. But this gave us the time to sit
and chat because now we both had nothing to do for the rest of the
afternoon. At first we both went to our separate offices where I
began to Pinterest my future wedding and house ( such a guilty
pleasure) and check out the latest celeb gossip on Perezhilton.com
(my go to sites when I need a brain break). Then in the middle of
looking at wedding dresses, my counterpart came in and sounding
distressed he said that he had important question about the cervical
cancer vaccine. I laughed because it was so random and we have never
talked about that before. But then I realized he really did want to
talk about the vaccine and had some very valid concerns and
questions. A little background on Mongolia and the cervical
cancer/HPV vaccine. Two years ago China began to ship it to Mongolia,
so it is still really new and many people do not accept it and are
afraid of side effects (most of which are myths and untrue, but
without the proper knowledge being explained to them, they believe it
all). Many parents refuse to have their daughters get the vaccine
because they are afraid it will give them cancer or that they will
die from the vaccine because of numerous other reasons. My
counterpart is not one of those people, but does show concern that
their vaccines are not up to par and since they are coming from China
they have no idea how they are being preserved and shipped. So he
began asking me questions about the vaccines we have in America and
how doctors handle parents and children regarding the vaccine. I told
him that when it first came out, a lot of people were against it and
thought that it was just a way for pharmaceutical companies to make
more money. There were rumors about it causing bad side effects, but
now it is accepted and most girls ages 9-15 receive them. 70% of
cervical cancer is caused by the HPV strands that the vaccine
protects young women from, so why wouldn't you get the vaccine. To me
it is a no brainer, but that's because I have gotten the correct
information fed to me and have done research of my own on the vaccine
in college. The vaccine saves lives, yes are there people whose
bodies react negatively to the vaccine yes, but that is true of any
drug. So I showed him a bunch of stats and charts on the two drugs
that the FDA approve in the stats and then showed him the rate of HPV
and cervical cancer and how the vaccine is helping, not hurting the
female population. At the end of my rant ( I never knew I was so for
the vaccine until I started explaining it to him), he asked me to
help him make a pamphlet and start a training for the community on
the importance of the vaccine. But, I do want to look into more the
type of vaccine they are giving the girls and how different it is
from the one in the States. He told me that they get it between the
ages of 15-18, then another in their 20s and a third in their 30s. I
explained to him that it may be more useful if they give it between
the ages of 11-15 instead, since many girls in Mongolia report having
sex at early ages and in order for the vaccine to work, they must
have not come in contact with HPV before. We will see how this goes,
I tried to explain to him that it may take a couple years for the
parents to accept the vaccine and the benefits of it.
Another concern he
voiced during out conversation was the problem with food poisoning at
the public school dorms. This week 20 children at food poisoning at
one of the local schools. My first question was “well do the cooks
get training on food preparation?” His answer “No.” Well there
is your problem I told him, I would guess that the food is not being
cooked or stored properly in the dorm kitchens. I told him that I
would love to spear head a training/seminar for the cooks at the
schools and teach them food safety. He was all for it and told me to
present the idea to Gandiima after he talked to me about one other
problem the community was having. This time they have had an outbreak
of illnesses. Children who were receiving their 1 year old shots, 7
of them, had become very ill after receiving them. After asking him a
few more questions I discovered that the children had been given the
vaccine by the same nurse at the same family clinic. At first I asked
if they received a bad dose of the vaccine, but he said they were in
the same batch as the rest of the clinics, so he ruled that out. I
then asked how the nurse gave the vaccines, what was her method, how
did she handle the children and the supplies. Did she wash her hands
between children? Did she use clean needles? Wear gloves? He said he
did not know but most likely she was not washing her hands or wearing
gloves, because they don't do that here. Well I said what were they
symptoms of the babies, was it a skin irritation, flu symptoms, cold
symptoms or any other kind. But he did not know, so I told him in
order to help him, I needed more details. I have a feeling the babies
got sick because they were all seen by a nurse who never washed her
hands or wore gloves, therefor spreading bacteria from one baby to
another and then onto the needle she was injecting them with, but we
shall see when I get more details. Sometimes I feel like I am playing
the character of Dr. House except for the fact that I am in Mongolia
and do not have a medical license. But I do have the internet, 4
years of medical related classes and pretty good common sense, which
goes far here. My counterpart told me that I have more knowledge than
most of the doctors, which is actually scary and now I know why Peace
Corps flies us all the way to Thailand when were are sick or injured
instead of to a Mongolian hospital.
After our discussion I
went straight up to director's office, which I am very proud of
myself, because usually it takes me a couple days of careful planning
and courage to go up to her with ideas of projects. But I decided to
just go up and try to fumble my way through Mongolian mixed with some
English words I know she knows and hope she gets the jist of it and
okays the projects. Luckily, she understood it and loved it and gave
me the names of the health department staff she wanted me to involve.
She also told me that she wants me to go meet with the
Community/Social Health branch for he health department and give them
ideas for World Aids Day and cardiovascular disease trainings. I
don't know why I am so afraid of talking to her, she is so nice and
caring. She always asks how my health is and if I am eating well. She
asked me to come talk to her everyday whenever I have time, so I
really am going to start doing that. The more I talk with everyone,
the more comfortable they are asking me for help and just interacting
with me, so I really need to take the initiative and not be afraid to
be turned down when it comes to project ideas because so far they
have liked all my ideas.
I can't believe that I
have been here for almost 5 months already! Some days I feel like I
am a great volunteer and then other days I feel like I am doing
nothing. But as more time goes on I realize that feeling is not going
to go away and the more I talk to other volunteers, I find out that
that is how everyone feels for the whole two years. It is hard to see
change in such a short period of time, but there are going to be
those flickers of light, where you see small movements towards change
and that what is going to give you the courage and drive to keep
going. I have learned to accept that more, and not wait for giant
ah-ha moments, because there will be a few of those where you can
measure tangible change. For the most part it's going to be all the
little things I do that make a lasting impression and help them
become more successful. That is the hardest thing to accept. When I
first signed up for Peace Corps and truly even during training, I
thought I was going to walk into my host agency and just start making
changes left and right; holding these giant trainings and health
projects that would change the lives of everyone in my community. Boy
was a I delusional. But as long as I try and get the information out
there, some one's life will be changed for the better and that is all
we can hope for while we are here! Thank god for the wonderful PCVs
that are here with me, keeping me sane and reminding me to breathe
when things go a rye. Although I accept that fact that I may not
change every single person here, I will keep trying to change my
whole entire community, because that is the type of person I am, but
I will be easier on myself when things do go as planned or I don't
see the results I was hoping for.
10/18/2013
This morning I had the
best skype session with my best friend Emily (for those of you who
don't know her, she has been one of my closest friends since
elementary school). It was just the conversation I needed! It is so
weird not being able to talk to her whenever I want about everything
under the sun. From good times and bad times we have always been
there for each other and I am so lucky to have such an amazing friend
in my life. I am so excited that she has an awesome new job, new
apartment and is really loving life! Both of us are in such great
places in our lives (finally). Ever since we talked, I have really
been taking the time to look back on things that have happened in the
past and things that are going on now and be comfortable with who and
where I am right now. The one thing that really stuck with me that
she said (I can't remember the exact wording) was when looking back
at memories and experiences, you can look back at them and be happy,
but you also must ask yourself “and what”..And what did this
teach me and what am I going to do with it. So I traveled to these
great places and met these great people which is great, but the most
important thing is what you do after wards with what you learned. How
do these experiences make you grow and be a better person, what
actions can you now take?
One of the most
important things that we have both learned from being abroad and
being really on our own is that “it is what it is”. Things happen
and you can't control them, you mustn’t dwell on these things, just
be happy everyday at each second. There is no good in worrying. Just
be in each moment completely and enjoy each moment. So thank you
Emily for such a wonderful and inspirational conversation. Love you
so much and can't wait to talk to you again (I promise not to write
about every conversation we have haha).
10/20/13
Work has been going
fabulously. I am really making moves with my two projects and
becoming really good friends with my counterpart. He is so much fun
and we are finally feeling comfortable with each other. Our
conversations no longer seem awkward or strained, we now joke around
and tell each other stories about our childhood and families. We get
tea together and text each other on the weekends about upcoming
events. He is awesome and I am so lucky to have such a great
counterpart who is not only good at his job, but an awesome friend
and great person in general. I am now tutoring his younger sister in
English and helping her with her homework assignments. She is
studying for the English Olympics, which is an English competition
that the top 3 students from 9th and 11th grade
from each school in Mongolia participate in. She won in 9th
grade for Arkhangai, and is hoping to win again and then move onto
the country wide competition in the capital. She is so smart and
motivated. When I asked her why she wanted to learn English, she said
that she wants to go to university in UB to be an Economist and then
go to Harvard for her masters. She teaches herself English for the
most part, because she is now beyond her teacher's level of English.
I asked her how she practices and she said that she talks to herself
in the mirror and listens to music and movies in English. She goes to
school at 9am on Saturday mornings to do extra math work with one of
her teachers, because she is much more advanced than the classes she
takes. I asked her why she works so hard at school, when all her
friends are home hanging out and she told me that she wants to be
able to help her parents and take care of her younger sister one day
by getting a great job. I told her that I admired her and that she is
someone who can make a lot of difference in the world. She such
smiled and giggled. I hope that she continues to be driven and
enthusiastic about school, because she honestly could be such a
positive role model for the women of Mongolia. I am so excited to see
what the future brings for her and to be able to witness it over the
next two years. School in Mongolia is done at grade 11, so next year
she will be going to UB for university. She has her entrance exam in
April, which will tell her what school she can go to. I have no
doubts that she will get into the best one.
Yesterday, I woke up
and cleaned my apartment and went online to look up ways to decorate
it, now that I am most likely staying here for the rest of my
service. I found some cute organizational ideas on Pinterest and
decided to go shopping at the Markets to find everything I need. I
called Lore and asked if she wanted to join in on the shopping trip
and we met at the bank and began the hunt for my craft supplies. I
bought everything I needed, hooks, nails, wood, curtain rods, clothes
pins, string, tacks and spray paint. I now had all the supplies to
make my scarf organizer and make shift clothes rack to hang ironed
outfits, so I don't have to iron an outfit every single morning. On
our way out of the market we saw that the new “super market” that
has been being built since we moved here was now open. It is amazing!
The supermarket had three different types of soy milk, vanilla,
chocolate and cappuccino! Lore and I were in shock, we bought all
three types and they were surprisingly good! I am so excited to be
able to have cereal now in the morning. It also carried multiple
kinds of pringles and champagne! We immediately bought our favorite
Pringles and ate them on the steps of the market. It was such a
beautiful day out. We also bought champagne and orange juice to make
mimosas with to celebrate the new supermarket. It's the little things
in life. I called Will as soon as we checked out and were eating on
the steps to let him know of the great find, he literally ran to the
market to meet us and see it for himself. Who knew that a supermarket
could elicit such excitement in 3 grown people.
Lore and I then went
back to my place to meet up with our friend Urta, for a girls night.
Urta speaks English pretty well and is hoping to get a job at World
Visions, which would be amazing because then we could work together
on projects. If she doesn't get the job, then she has to move back to
UB to work, which would be so unfortunate because she is so much fun
to hang out with! The three of us made springs rolls and red bean
burgers. Both turned out fabulously and Urta enjoyed them as well.
Mongolians tend to not eat vegetables and in order to consider
something a meal, there must be a large portion of meat, but since
being in Mongolia, for the most part, Lore and I have not been eating
any meat. I don't cook meat at my apartment, so the only time I eat
it is if I go to a restaurant and order it, which is not often. As we
ate our meal, we watched an episode of Friends and then spent a
couple hours on Facebook showing each other our friends back home.
Urta also asked how “Americans keep their teeth so nice”, so I
then gave her a mini lesson on how to brush and floss her teeth. She
has never used floss before, so I told her that floss is just as
important as brushing her teeth and gave her a box of floss to use.
She was so excited and then told me about the dentists here and how
she doesn't like how you can only go when you have a really bad
cavity. After I told her about American dentists and how Americans go
about twice a year to get their teeth cleaned “professionally”,
she said she wished that the dentists in Mongolia did that, because
“mongolians have ugly teeth”. I reassured her that Americans also
get cavities and sometimes have ugly teeth. Haha.
Urta told us how a
dog in the neighborhood had puppies and left them in back of her
apartment, they were really small and she was worried that they were
not going to make it out in the cold. She was feeding them, but could
not keep all three puppies herself inside her apartment. I have
always been an anti dog person. I like other peoples' dogs, but never
had the overwhelming feeling to have one of my own, so I brushed of
her comment, saying that I would go look at them, but I really don't
think I want one. Then I made the mistake of going to see the puppies
the next morning. They were so adorable, even though they had fallen
in one of the squatty potties in the yard. Lore and I could not
resist their tiny little faces. We called Urta and told her we were
behind her apartment looking at the puppies. She came down and talked
about them, telling us which two were the best behaved and then
invited us into her apartment for lunch. Her mother was so sweet and
gave us beef stew, bread, tea, candy and airag (fermented mares milk,
which has definitely grown on me). She sat there talking to us as
Urta translated. Her mother said she would have prepared a real meal
if she knew we were coming and that next week she will have us over
for dinner. She will cook us a French meal, that she learned from one
of the missionaries that had been in the town. Her mother told us how
she loved American women and that she wanted us to visit her
frequently and thanked us for helping the community. It was so sweet,
I had tears in my eyes the whole time we talked. The people her are
just unbelievably kind and open. I hope that I leave Mongolia with
their attitude and outlook on life. What an amazing way to live.
Lore and I left Urta's
apartment with two puppies in plastic bags. I now have a puppy named
чихэр (cheekhair),
which is Mongolian for the word candy. She had the most wonderful
attitude and is adorable. I am so excited to spend the winter
training her, she is going to know some amazing tricks by the end of
these two years. But first things first, I must house train her,
which is going to be hard, because she is so little and should still
be with her mother. Lore and estimated the puppies ages to be a
little over a month, based on the amount of teeth they have (we
searched online how to tell the age) and due to the fact that they
are teething. Will came over to play with the puppies and help us
bathe them. My puppy loved the bath and just laid right down in the
tub, but Lore's on the other hand, hated it and was jumping around
the whole time. After the bath, they were freezing so we put them in
front of the space heater, where they quickly fell asleep cuddled up
next to each other.
10/21/13
It snowed so much last
night and is now -4 degrees. I love it. The town looks so beautiful
covered in snow and the puppies (Lore's is staying at my place until
she can get a gate to block off her Ger, which should be tomorrow)
loved playing in it. I woke up this morning and took them outside
where they jumped around and wrestled in the snow. They then ate some
breakfast and fell back asleep as I got ready for work. I went to
work and worked on my Food Safety presentation and looked up how to
train a dog. I got a couple E-Books about it and will be reading them
all week and practicing with the puppies. During lunch, Lore met me
at my apartment to take the dogs outside again and go out to eat.
They are getting better at going to the bathroom outside and we even
started to teach them how to sit, which they surprisingly caught onto
with the help of hotdog pieces. Since there is no dog food to buy, we
have been creating our own, using rice, beef broth, carrots and
chicken pate. They seem to love it and we also got a great recipe to
bake treats. In Mongolia, the dogs just eat the scraps and leftovers
of their owners food, which usually means, skins of potatoes and
carrots, bread fat, water and anything else that falls on the floor
or that the humans don't eat. The concoction is actually really gross
looking and smelling. I remember watching my host family feed their
dog and feeling so bad for it. I am just so excited to take the
puppies out tonight in the snow and play around with them. The snow
is perfect for packing snowballs!
The girl I am tutoring
came to my work today to have me look over two essays she wrote,
which were great and I only had to fix some grammar mistakes and
cross out a few extra articles. The internet isn't working at work,
so it's making it hard to look up things for my trainings. Luckily, I
downloaded a couple articles and PDFs about World Aids Day last
Friday, so I am reading over those now. Since the internet is out, my
coworkers have been playing table tennis. I love that when the power
or internet goes out, all work stops. People just go home for the
rest of the day or they hang out and play table tennis. No stress.
Granted, they do work all hours of the day on the other days to
finish their work. Numerous times I have walked by the Health
Department and people are working away at 8/9 at night. So although
they have no real schedule, they do stay at work much longer than
Americans. There days consist of coming to work at 9 or 10 am and
then staying till 8 pm because they take so many breaks and go
shopping during work hours. But I kind of like that about Mongolia,
because when I am feeling tired from working, I just go on a two hour
lunch break or a walk around the market, come back to work
rejuvenated and ready to do some more work. Maybe they have work all
figured out. If you don't stress time so much, maybe people will be
happier and more productive at their job. I recently read that
Arriana Huffington (my idol) of the Huffington Post (I read it every
morning) has nap and yoga rooms in her office for her workers to
relax and sleep in. She feels as though her workers work better when
rested and relaxed and has been writing articles, cleverly titled,
“Sleeping Your Way to the Top”. She has done research and is now
implementing it at her job; when people get enough sleep and take
naps intermittently through out the day they are more productive.
10/23/13
Today, I had a three
hour meeting with the social worker of School #1 about the Halloween
party we are planning for this Saturday night. Jen and I have been
planning the party for over a month and when we went to day to make
sure things were still going as planned, we learned that her
counterpart had forgotten to tell the teachers and students. So here
we are 2 days away from the event and no one knows about it. Luckily,
my counterpart came with me and was able to translate everything and
the party is now on again for Saturday. In true Mongolian fashion a
party for over 400 students is being planned 2 days before it is
supposed to take place. For the next 48 hours Jen and I will be doing
non stop work on the party that was supposed to be planned solidly
over the past month. We had a party committee set up with teachers,
social workers and students, who were supposed to be getting ready
for the event, we had given them examples of the decorations the
students need to make, wrote out a description in both English and
Russian to give to the English teachers of the school to translate
into Mongolian. But if it is like any Mongolian party I have seen
before, it will be awesome and the students will have a great time.
Yesterday, I helped
give a presentation about binge drinking at another college and it
went really well. They loved the beer goggles game and were really
enthusiastic about the rest of the training as well. I completed the
English version of my food preparation training, so now I just need
to take the rest of the week to look it over before I submit it to my
counterpart to translate and work on. Today, I also discussed the
idea of getting dentists to come into the elementary schools and give
presentations to the students, as well as provide each student with a
free toothbrush. This idea was new to him, so I explained how
dentists give out free toothbrushes in America, and told him about
the time when we had a dental student come into Boys and Girls Club
and do a quick presentation and gave out little gift bags of floss,
toothbrushes, toothpaste and book. He is really interested in doing
this at the schools here and we are going to start looking into
setting this up for next year, when he can submit a new budget and
get some goodie bags together for the children that attend the
training. In the mean time I am going to look up grants that we can
apply for to get more funding for our trainings.
Tomorrow, I am helping
gather all the surveys we sent out to different organizations around
Arkhangai. The surveys were about daily health practices and overall
health. We sent them out to 19 different organizations to be filled
out by their employees and will collect the majority of them
tomorrow.
My puppy is doing so
well. She is so cute. She snorts when she is happy, its adorable and
I hope she never grows out of it! I used to be the person who never
ever wanted a dog, but now that I have one, I just love it. I didn't
even like playing with other peoples' dogs let alone having one
myself. Apparently, when I turned 23 years old, I also turned into a
dog lover, more like dog liker, I still do not allow her to lick me
(I hate that) and I will never refer to her as my child like she is
human. We have been practicing sit and shake, which she has down for
the most part. Her favorite treat is little pieces of hotdog, so
whenever she does something well I give her a little piece. She is
also doing really well with house training. She has figured out that
when she whines, I will take her outside, so she does that whenever
she has to go to the bathroom and when I am not home, she uses the
little area I set up for her bath-rooming needs (most of the time).
Since being separated from her sister (lore's dog), she is now afraid
to sleep alone in the kitchen, so she now sleeps in bed with me.
Which I don't mind at all, she is extra warmth in my freezing
apartment. She sleeps curled up next to me. I can't wait till she is
big enough to go for walks and runs with me! I got a couple books on
how to train a dog to do tricks, I figure I have two years to make
her the best trained dog there is, especially since the winter time
is so long and work is almost non existent during those months.
10/24/13
This morning we had
another meeting about the Halloween Party and drew up a layout of the
gym and a schedule of all the games. 13 teachers have agreed to help
us proctor the event and bring in juice and snacks for the kids. They
are going to do a decoration contest tomorrow, and the winners will
receive a prize and the decorations will be used to decorate the gym
for the party. Tochto, Jen's counterpart got really into making up
games and gave us some great ideas for the party. Aruik, my
counterpart, just helped me write a speech that Jen and I will have
to give in Mongolian during the opening ceremony of the party. The
parties here are so “formal”, the students and teachers will
arrive and take their seats in the gym while the director gives her
speech and then we give ours, after the opening ceremony, the games
will start, then awards will be given out for the winners and then
the alst hour will be the dance. Before the last song, their will be
a short closing ceremony, with a couple other speeches and then
finally the last song and the end of the party. The games that the
students will be playing are: 3 legged race, limbo, pin the tail on
the black cat, pumpkin bowling, orange passing relay race, ball toss
(set up like beer pong, but without the beer) and freeze dance. They
are going to be class versus class competitions, where each class is
awarded points for how they do during each game.
About 20 minutes ago,
I found out that I will be doing an hour long presentation for all
the health educators and school nurses/doctors on how to decrease
non-infectious diseases among adolescents. It will be on November 7
from 1030am-1130am. Luckily, I will have a translator, so I only have
to prepare the Powerpoint in English and then the translator will put
it into Mongolian and translate for me during the presentation. I am
super nervous, but also excited. I need to start working on it ASAP.
